84HuskerLaw

Hopelessness ? there is certainly no reason to feel hopeless (no hope at all?). How can anyone with any football understanding feel that way at this point. There is no reason to feel we are not winning any more games this year or next or the year after? That is hopeless! If you were hoping for a national title in 2015 or 2016, you are taking something that is not legally manufactured in the United States! Hope there should be plenty of at this point. We have seen improvement and that is not debatable to me. I believe this year's team would beat last year's team. Ameer would be the only reason one could argue last year's team was better and I believe the new staff has taught some good things to the players. Would the game be a challeng? yes. but we have better overall talent this year it appears to me.

Maybe I am missing something here on this stat but isn't this about 'normal' for a travel roster because you have a total of 85 max on scholarship and in most years about all your freshman and one or two (non frosh) are red shirt scholarship players who would not travel. If you give about 22 scholarships each year off of 85 scholarships, that means you travel with at most about 63 scholarship players and the rest would then necessarily be walk ons. Apparently we only had 55 in Miami but several had injuries and could not play so maybe they didn't travel either. I am just estimating therefore that about five (5) walk ons have beat out scholarship guys on the travel squad. I think that says some good walk ons made the team as you would surely expect and hope. A few upper classman didn't turn out and quit or transferred or got in trouble, etc. Thus, if I am reading your comment as you intended it, I don't think we can really fault Bo's recruiting bad scholarship guys that are apparently not as good as walk ons this year according to Riley. ? Am I missing something in this analysis? Just trying to understand the point. Maybe you are right and if so, it is shocking and disappointing to think the recruiting has been 'that bad' in recent years. On the other hand, maybe that is good because we can hopefully recruit better and thereby improve the team significantly as a result. 22 a year is more than 85. 24 walk ons is an tribute of how much Bo disliked and how lazy they were when it came to recruiting. They were more focused on trying to create new excuses as to why they couldn't get talent to Nebraska instead of putting in more work to get them here. Yes recruiting has been "that bad" under Bo. He just didn't like it and it is fitting that he went to a small school where they only get the kids that are not good enough to make it to the big schools. Which is why it wouldn't surprise me if he was successful at Youngstown State, just like Frank at Ohio as you don't have to be a good recruiter to win at that level. Yes 22 X 4 = 88 but it is also not unusual to have one recruit fail to qualify or drop out or change his mind, etc. Call it 21 X 4 = 84. With about 20 red shirts and medical hardships and injureds and academics etc. it seems not surprising to find we take walk ons instead of nearly 100% scholarship guys to travel. My only point. And as far as 24, I would hope we have that many quality walk ons on the roster at any given time. Hopefully I'd like to see about 45 good walk ons on the team at any given time. We need to keep roster up near 130 in my opinion. If we have 45 walk on s,. a good chance that a dozen or so are significant contributors. I would not be surprised that out of 25 scholarships granted, at least 20% won't end up making the three deep chart for numerous reasons from academics to homesickness to family issues to drugs and other moral issues, to major injuries ending careers to simply a kid losing interest in sports. Another 20% won't make it athletically as they get too big, never get big enough, are not as fast or talented as hoped, etc. That takes about 40% of 25 or 10 from the roster leaving 15. 15 X 4 = 60 (again) leaving a necessity to take a number of walk ons to Miami. I am not trying to argue against your point about Bo's poor recruiting as I tend to think he did not recruit as well as he should have and maybe didn't make the effort. Recruiting to Lincoln requires major effort by the coaches in travel, being away from home, etc. Maybe in Miami, you can recruit from your car by driving a couple hours on a Friday nite. Not happening in Nebraska. You fly all over the USA. And, in today's economy, getting top kids away from other parts of the country is tough when the consequence is the kid's parents and friends etc won't be able to afford to go the games. And tickets are not cheap in Lincoln, In Miami, you could obviously walk in to the game Saturday without a ticket by early in the second quarter and sit anywhere! Big difference for Florida kids.

Maybe I am missing something here on this stat but isn't this about 'normal' for a travel roster because you have a total of 85 max on scholarship and in most years about all your freshman and one or two (non frosh) are red shirt scholarship players who would not travel. If you give about 22 scholarships each year off of 85 scholarships, that means you travel with at most about 63 scholarship players and the rest would then necessarily be walk ons. Apparently we only had 55 in Miami but several had injuries and could not play so maybe they didn't travel either. I am just estimating therefore that about five (5) walk ons have beat out scholarship guys on the travel squad. I think that says some good walk ons made the team as you would surely expect and hope. A few upper classman didn't turn out and quit or transferred or got in trouble, etc. Thus, if I am reading your comment as you intended it, I don't think we can really fault Bo's recruiting bad scholarship guys that are apparently not as good as walk ons this year according to Riley. ? Am I missing something in this analysis? Just trying to understand the point. Maybe you are right and if so, it is shocking and disappointing to think the recruiting has been 'that bad' in recent years. On the other hand, maybe that is good because we can hopefully recruit better and thereby improve the team significantly as a result.

I really appreciate your positive thinking Landlord! We have made adjustments on both defense and offense. They play calling has been very good and I believe will get better as these coaches and players get used to each other. Another year, with the overall improvement I see in Tommy A and I believe he will post some of the best QB numbers ever at Nebraska! While Nebraska is certainly not known as "QB U", we've had a few pretty good ones. I don't see him being compared to our 'greats' but he will own all the records most likely and I feel without question he is a better quarterback than Taylor Martinez! I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Tommy put up stats next year (even this year frankly) that are in the 'heisman' area. Of course he won't even be seriously discussed for many reasons (intangibles certainly have room to grow alot). We may not have won two of our first three but we could have and we are making strides. Offensively our numbers are not great but are not bad. Defensively we are giving up about 100 yards a game too much. The poorest play so far has been our special teams area. There is where the true problems are in my opinion; easily remedied and I believe they will be soon. If you look back, we have suffered about 150 yards a game in net negative field position as a consequence of poor special teams plays such as not fielding punts which roll for another 30 yards to almost no punt returns to few kick off returns, etc. We've missed field goals and have punted very poorly ourselves. All of this, has dramatically HURT us in all three games. Despite these issues, the offense has managed quite a number of long, sustained drives of 50 to 85 yards ending in TDs. We are scoring over 40 a game with two of three opponents being good competition. Those are good enough to win certainly. We have held opponents reasonably well defensively in all but about 3 quarters of the 12 quarters played so far. Again, two of three opponents were pretty decent offenses with talent at the skill positions and OLines. Again, I maintain our offense and defense, while not perfect, are playing well enough to easily be 3-0 with a 2 TD winning margin. Get the special teams where we are 'winning' in those and we will be much more successful. Those things are fixable as our kickers have talent! We have a gifted return man healing up and some other guys capable of making good returns. We are tackling as a team better than we have in years. Our blocking is reasonably good and getting better weekly. We have enough athletes to accomplish good kick/punt coverage. We need to look for some chances to block kicks but need our very fastest guys on the edges to go for those now and then.

It would have been a great comeback win - one of the best and likely the biggest deficit overcome in 10 minutes ever! surely a headline of some sort reflecting it such as "Huskers' Incredible Rally!" I do believe there is a exceedingly heavy dose of negativism in Husker Nation dating all the way back to Solich circa 2001! There are a few who can still find the bright side of things but it seems like about 80% of those commenting hereon are negative on about everything from the coaches to the players to their fellow board members, etc. I feel some of this may be due in no small measure to the overall negative status of America and its economy, political mess, social upheaval and etc. etc. It is true we have not had any real positive messages from our leaders since about 2001 either as 9/11 really took a toll on our collective psyche! I personally have experienced a very difficult last 6 years in business and family circumstances that has been life changing to say the least. Therefore, it would not be at all surprising were people that know me well to describe me as very pessimistic and depressed generally. That being said, I am quite the contrary on my future outlook for Husker football. I believe Riley will be a very successful coach and leader over time. Many wrote about the likelihood of 'growing pains' and transitional issues and the problems of changing staffs, systems, schemes, etc etc etc. We are now in the process and it seems that there are many who may acknowledge they themselves predicted this turbulance and 'bumps in the road' but now that they are happening they seem surprised and disappointed. One should not be disappointed when something predicted and expected and anticipated occurs. In many ways, one should look at it as a relief as the change is finally happening. Change is traumatic and big change can be very much so. Still, after the change is implemented and the conditions have settled, the voyage can be much smoother and satisfying. It is the process which must happen before the healing and mending can be complete. Let's see how the next three games go. then make another evaluation. I believe we will find reason to anticipate better times in the future. Go Big Red. The stadium will be full and cheering loudly in Lincoln Saturday and then if we can put a couple Ws in place, let the rocking begin for Wisconsin. I feel good about our chances.

I asked in another thread to see if anyone sees the obvious glaring area of subpar play thus far which in my view has caused the two losses and yet can be easily remedied qucikly and help the team play much better the rest of the year! Nobody seems to be discussing it really. The answer is "Special teams". We have played very poorly so far, losing the area of special teams in all three games badly in my opinion. Poor punting. Poor punt returns. Poor punt fielding. Poor field goal kicking. Poor kick off returns. These areas are easily fixed. Perhaps field goal kick are already 'fixed'. Punting will be better if our punter is healthy. Punt fielding was remedied with putting a second man back there but I am sure they had to tell Westy to catch the dam ball and don't let it roll for 30 yards. Kick off returns were mediocre yesterday. We need a hard charging 'slasher' running back kick offs. Punt returns require a shifty quick as a cat runner who can make the first two or three guys miss after the catch. Kick off returns require someone with excellent straight away speed and an almost suicidal charge of the light brigade mentality to run into the on coming wall of defenders and punch through ala the children's "red rover game". You must break through, not dance on kick offs. If we had won special teams in all three games, we would have won all three games by several touchdowns in my opinion. Field position has been terrible and we have had to go 80 yards into the wind, sun, etc. all three games. This can and will likely change for the better as the season progresses.

LOL Well, I get the comment about my lengthy articles! Sorry but writing is what I do for a living and apparently I like to read what i write! LOL I find it interesting that nobody seems to be discussing and pointing out the ONE major area of the team's play thus far this year that is quite a surprise to me. I think frankly it is the reason we are NOT comfortably 3-0 AND is capable of making dramatic improvement fairly quickly and being consistently good the rest of the year? Can anybody guess what I am thinking about?

I wrote a lengthy case in the what did we learn Miami discussion on page 2 I believe today. I think it does take both great talent and great coaching to produce great teams. You have good talent and great coaching, you may get some great results but won't have a great team. You take great talent and good coaching and you will get great results more often than not. But the one thing for certain is that great coaches and poor talent won't ever produce a great or even good team. You may get some upsets now then but those will be exceptions and not the rule. That, arguably, may have been the lot of Mike Riley at Oregon State. Talent this year at Nebraska? Good enough to win the west division championship? Perhaps, with a lot of luck and almost zero injuries to starters and key backups in October and November. Could we upset Ohio State? Our chances are about 1 in 12 tries, perhaps. I rate our present overall talent level on this team at about 40th in the country. We are improving and learning fast this season. Can it be top 30 by year end? Yes, certainly. Coaching? Good enough to win the west division champsionship frequently? Yes. Win a conference title once every 4 years? Yes. National title contender? Unknown but possibly. I give Riley high marks based on the very preliminary experience we have thus far. He knows what is going on and is working hard to teach the players the skills they need to play football better. Does Riley have top ten talent? As stated above - clearly NO! Are we capable of playing top 20 football this year? I say it is conceivable we will for parts of some games and part of the season but consistently ? Not likely. We need to upgrade our talent level more than coaching in my opinion. But it is understandable that we need much more evidence before we come to a decision on the coaching. We know Oregon State did NOT have great talent but did have a few good players now and then. They had more success in the talented years I believe. That tells me that Riley and Company can coach IF they have the players with ability to play at a higher level. Time will tell but I lean toward the talent deficiency at this point.

I, for one, have not given up on this team. I have been pretty realistic in my assessments for the past 4 decades I have been a fan. Perhaps as many as 7 times over the said 42 years or so, I have over estimated the team's prospects and maybe three or four I under estimated them. This year, despite the 1-2 won/loss record I am feeling a little BETTER about the team's prospects now than I did a month ago. I say this because despite having been behind in both losses by substantial margins and momentum and the overall ebb and flow of the game seeming to be going against us, we fought hard and played better in the second half and came back. Sadly, the last few moments of both losses were disappointing but our team has a calm demeanor and certain underlying confidence. I believe that comes from Riley and his staff and they players are reflecting their coaches for the most part. A penchant for inopportune penalties has been a trademark of the Huskers for a number of years. It should not be surprising that penalty issues remain. Penalties typically show up for one of two reasons: the team has a rather nasty attitude evidenced by a blatant disregard for playing within both the spirit and letter of the rules often reflecting the head coach's like minded approach to the game or life in general, or the penalties flare up as a result of player's general frustrations at being out manned or played by overall better players (bigger, stronger, faster). Personal fouls, roughness, illegal blocks,unsportsmanlike conduct, etc frequently fall is the former case while holding, formation and alignment issues, delay of games, motions, off sides, etc. tend to be more common in the latter case. Though of course any penalty can happen, even to the best coached, most talented team in the country. Miami used to have a 'bad boys' reputation that was generally earned, although it may have been over blown by the media somewhat. They had a swagger back in the day that was obvious. Oklahoma had the same type of attitude. I felt at the time, the teams reflected their coach's demeanor. Barry Switzer had a swagger and bad boy attitude as did Miami coaches of the era for the most part. The Huskers had Tom Osborne's calm, reflective, steady approach generally. We had a few teams (think Broderick Thomas' "our house") that gained a bit of a reputation as a little on the 'bad' side at times. But for the most part, this was only a couple seasons and a handful of individual players' the projected this. The best player of the Pelini years is easily Suh and certainly he has developed a 'bad boy' reputation which came on his senior year somewhat, arguably reflecting the attitude of his head coach. Not sure why but perhaps there is some of that in the Detroit Lions organization as well? Personally, I don't like that attitude and hope the Huskers avoid it. But, we do, at the same time, need to get a more aggressive attitude with more toughness and hard hitting style. I see more of this approach this year than in recent years as we see better gang tackling and so on. We need to find more toughness and desire to dominate physically on the offensive side of the ball and from the defensive line in getting the push to collapse the pocket. The D line needs to 'meet at the quarterback' on every obvious passing down certainly. We have seen good adjustments in these first three games defensively as the team played better in the second, third and fourth quarters (for the most part). This suggests the coaches are recognizing things we can do differently to better match up and or control the opponent's schemes. The negative to making all these adjustments is that we could or should have been better prepared for the opponent before the game started and not have needed to make the adjustments. This preparation often is more accurate as the season moves along and the coaches have more film and games to evaluate along these lines. So let's give them about three more games before we unfairly rush to judgement on preparation capabilities. BYU and Miami may turn out to be top 25 teams by year end. If so, playing with a couples snaps of wins may be less painful to take looking back in hindsight. The next three games will tell us a great deal about the character and quality of this team. If we fall and fade and have a 2-4 record or something, we will have more to worry about. But, we can still be looking at a 4-2 record at that point as well and be riding a three game win streak, fresh off a win over a top 25 caliber Wisconsin bunch. If the penalties decline significantly (from 13 to say 7 for example), and the wins are coming, we can be fairly confident that things are indeed headed in the right direction. We have all recognized the prospects, based on so many predictions on this board, were for about 8 or 9 wins and 4-5 losses. We appear headed in that general vacinity as of now. The argument has been more about overall competitiveness and quality of play than wins and losses for most. Many want the team to look better losing and not appear to be out classed. We should be a perennial top 20 and maybe top 10 team to most on here. I agree. However, I know we are NOT there now and we have not been there for about 12 years. The drop off happened under Frank Solich (it is one of the reasons he was fired but NOT the only one as certain unpublicized off the field things also contributed to his departure). Callahan couldn't bring us back from the abyss so he was replaced by Pelini. He was able to keep the Huskers from falling completely off the football map but unfortunately he had so many negative issues that reflected badly on the reputation of the school and its leadership as well, that he had to go. Now, Riley was brought in to hopefully fix the reputation problems certainly and maybe begin to resurrect the once almighty Huskers to prominence. I don't know that he has time before retirement looms out there 6 or 8 years hence but? I will make this prediction: next year's team has a great chance to be top 10 level! Will it be a once in a decade splash? Perhaps. But we have a good bunch of young players that have learned a lot in just three games, in my opinion. Tommy Armstrong will have rewritten all the records by the time he graduates. In this game, he passed up some Husker legends in his numbers. He still has nearly half his career to go yet! Tommy is playing at an all conference level right now and it seems likely to me that he will only get much better as this season progresses. As will the many younger players seeing action this year. The freshmen won't be freshmen by mid October.

Listen: the game is not over yet! We get one turnover early in third and punch one in and we're back in it, despite playing horribly! A terrible first quarter. Too many bonehead penalties - a couple of which were about 35 yard penalties and drive killers. We overcame a couple near 3rd and punt situations. However, we are not getting turnover. Tackling is good but we need to hit and strip the ball. I suspect Miami will attempt to move the ball some but may want to be more cautious to avoid the pick 6 scenario that makes the game more competitive. They will want to run clock. We need to quit the stupid 'stretch' plays. They are poorly designed and absent defense errors, they won't work very often. We need quick hitters with average speed running backs. Delays and slow to break plays allow the defense to cover too easily and require the blocks to be longer lasting and more devastating. Not our strength certainly.

Way too many dropped passes that would have extended drives and helped keep the game within reach. You can't drop the ball with decent throws. tough. Gonna be a big factor in this loss certainly.

LOL Not sure where you been getting your information but you need to reconsider your sources and the thinking about the same thereafter. Bush is not likely at all to be even in the race by January 1, 2016, let alone winning. Neither is Hillary for that matter. She has a better chance of being in jail or at least subject to indictment charges than being elected. At this time, Trump is the odds on favorite to win the election. Certainly, it is unlikely that Wall Street decided who and why. The liberal media is the primary manipulators of the election process and the selecting of candidates. The voters are upset with both parties on an unprecedented scale in my opinion. The majority of the people in this country are very unhappy with the direction things are headed as the economy continues to slide, the recession continues unabated nothwithstanding all the media and political hype and spin attempting to portray otherwise, and the general state of society.

Dan Alexander, before he blew out both knees as I recall, ran about 4.48 his freshman year and was about 6-3 and 240 lbs. Even after his knees were rebuilt, he had decent speed. He probably was faster amazingly in the 60 or even 100 yard dash than the 40. Dan had decent 'home run' speed but around his time, we had so grown accustomed to I Backs with 4.4 speed (Aman, Phillips, Childs, Benning, Simms, DuBose, and on and on and on) Deangelo Evans was a good back but Frank played him injured his frosh year (a groin issue related to excessive squat lifting it was theorized at the time). Most I Backs over the years were clearly faster than Imani and most of our recent backs. Ameer was exceptionally quick but his straight away speed was not exceptional. You prefer of course for your I Backs to run 4.4 electronics. 4.55 is really too slow today as many teams have LBs that run near 4.6 and it makes it hard to turn the corner on runs to the outside if your backs are not speedy. The quick backs like Ameer and Corey Ross (about 4.7 slow) have to run inside mostly as they just can't turn the corner often times. I personally feel Imani is about as fast as our other backs but may not be as quick and can't make people miss in the backfield if they break through the line of scrimmage. A back that can get back to the line of scrimmage instead of losing 2 or 3 is a great value with a mediocre o line.

I don't see any advantage to the Big Ten in taking anyone from the Big 12 with exception of KU because of its academice and BB reputation. The Big Ten already has Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, Penn State, Nebraska and Wisconsin for football powers. That's God's plenty. The last thing you want to do as a conference is add so many 'power' schools that they all beat each other up so badly that none have a serious chance of finishing unbeaten or with one loss. The SEC is facing this problem somewhat and has plenty of reasons to not want OU or TX. Both teams present big challenges to all members as opponents. If I am OU and TX, I would go together to the PAC 12. Overall, less difficult schedule and better weather, etc. TX and OU are too far away for fans to travel. KU fits better geographically in Big Ten west of course. But I think Big Ten needs to realign a tad and add couple more East division teams. Pittsburgh or east coast school with strong academics and BB programs is best. Big Ten is already strong in football. I believe Big Ten has the most National champions and wins of all the conferences already from historical perspective.

I dont' think it is very useful to spend so much time debating the Bo vs. Mike vs. Bill vs. Frank vs. Tom vs. Urban vs Unknamed Famous Coach X! It is impossible to determine exactly which one is better as it is NOT something that can be objectively measured perfectly. Debating which player was the greatest in any sport or era or even on a given team is likewise a never ending dispute. People just need to agree to disagree. There is no way even theoretically to compute or measure or weigh or compare them. It is really difficult to determine which team is the 'best' and sometimes even after a pair of teams play each other and one wins, it can be difficult to decide which is 'the best'. Defining 'the best' can be as big an argument as applying that definition objectively to a given situation or team or game, etc. The whole point of Huskerboard, in my view, is a forum to debate and discuss and argue one's opinions. Talking about football is almost as much fun as watching or even playing the game for most people. Let's all try to keep this discussion FUN and respectful and sincere. We can disagree amicably. And once a given topic has been discussed and debated ad nauseum (Bo Pelini stays/goes/better/worse, etc) is history. Let's talk 2015 Husker football, atleast during the season. Just my humble suggestion. I realize I am a new contributor and my views carry little weight but just trying to encourage a positive and friendly environment here!

Looking through the history of his time at Oregon State and the CFL, Riley and Company have a penchant for setting up special defenses to handle exceptional passers or running QBs. Sometimes called a 'box and 1' the Riley team will assign one guy just to play the QB every play, usually adding an extra LB or safety and playing 12 guys on defense throughout the game. This one man advantage creates mismatches and signficant problems for most defenses. He is free to blitz or drop back or simply play a monster or rover back patroling wherever. This might be a good scheme for this week end assuming we have a typical set of referees that miss the count. LOL

I think you run the offense and especially when you have a young team and new players running a new system and you are facing a long tough schedule ahead. We can't afford to be nice and lay on the ball in the 4th quarter. We did not really run up the score as it was only in the 40s anyway. If we had been throwing for the end zone up by 60, that might be different. But we substituted a bunch and played a number of young guys anyway. We ran our offense and should. We are not a run run run run and run some more offense either. I would have liked to have Fyfe throw a few more balls myself. I said before the game that we needed to see him throw 10 times and complete 6 for a TD. Not sure if he got that many but I don't it. More like about 6 or so.

I guess it was a little harder to judge the play calling 'feel' for me this week but we only seemed to have maybe 4 or 5 plays that really felt wrong to me. I think that is another good sign about the future. We mixed up better. We still have half a dozen or so little or no gain running plays, a couple of which came on third and shorts where we came up way short. Disappointing as we should not have been stopped by So. Bama IMO. Overall I give the team a solid B+ today. Kicking game a B+, Passing game a B+ and special teams a B+.

I think we get quite a few 20 to 35 yard gains and I call those 'big' plays. We don't need to get 80 yard plays although I think we have the receivers who can actually go that distance. Reilly has excellent deep threat speed. DPE does too. Westercamp can score from 50 or so and some of the others as well. I believe Wilbon has at least the same speed as Ameer and Newby is certainly comparable to Ameer and good for 30 to 40 yards out. Our receivers will start breaking some of the short pass catches and turn them into bigger plays as well. Give them time. We are only two games in but the offense is showing signs of being able to make a TD drive starting at our own 12, etc. Those long drives are tough. We have not had good field position for a large portion of these first two games, not the fault of the offense. But, we will get some big plays I think. Be patient.

Good he let Fyfe throw some more after his interception. Well, it's big game week now as the Canes will be looking to get revenge. Probably be ugly and would not surprise to see some fights, etc. We go there with a chance to win but I expect we will NOT be favored. Odds are Canes by about 14. My prediction based on our first two games and their first two games and the game being in Miami (hot and steamy and we are lacking depth and maybe not in great shape yet). Miami 38 to 24.

Sadly we didn't get this game put away until late in the third and score wise into the fourth. Fyfe and the first string line should have run the last TD series. Hope the offense gets after it when he does get in. We need some meaningful snaps as any play could leave him as the starter.

We need to punch this one in starting the fourth quarter. Should have had at least two more TDs really. Given up about 75 yards too much on defense. But improvement nonetheless. Not sure we are ready to play and win in Miami though. Gonna be tough if we start 1-2 but this team seems to have a good mindset if we do. Still got a chance to make a run in the Big Ten West division. None of the west div teams seem to be playing lights out yet. Wiscy won big but very weak opponent. We need to really avoid injuries and get a bunch healed up. As with recent years, we can't afford to lose starters to injuries as our depth is shaky. Our number 2 guys are decent but our back ups for the back ups (3s and 4s) are big drop offs frankly.

Good teams make marked improvement between game 1 and game 2. In this case, it seems pretty clear that overall team has made excellent improvement with fewer penalties, better line play, more comfort in demeanor, relaxed, confident and feeling better about their ability to make plays. They keep playing hard.

A good (but not great) first half. Really about as good as we could have hoped except we punted twice. Couple drives stalled and really should not have done so. We are lacking any running gains from Tommy. He needs to have about 30 to 40 yards a game with at least one or two 3 down and medium type scrambles for first downs particularly. His throws are definately better.

Wonder who sits in north stadium that is so important that he could get the AD to dump 1100 season tickets @ $400 plus each so he or she could have a little more room. That's a donation of about 1/4 million annually! Not counting a ton of hot dogs and Dew and runza sales lost!